stopped it from coming down into the church. The children, as may be imagined, were frightened nearly out of their wits, and made a rush to the Little door, as it is now called, loudly screaming, with frantic efforts to get out of the church. In a pew near this door sat the worthy village doctor; he also was one of the first to make a rush for the same door, and in so doing was sadly pulled about by the children, so much so that, on his way home, his coat was anything but becoming to his honourable profession. I was sitting in what was then called the singing gallery, at the west end, and well remember the venerable vicar standing in his pulpit unmoved, watching part of his congregation making frantic efforts to escape from the church, but who were unable to do so on account of the door opening inwards. His curate-assistant, who was sitting in the reading-desk beneath the pulpit, was not so self-possessed, for the instant the weight fell, he bounded from his seat into the aisle, and bursting open the door, threw up his arms over his head, struck with terror at the tremendous noise above, while particles of lime and dust from the roof fell upon him and about him. The cause of this great commotion was soon discovered, and the vicar dismissed the remaining portion of his congregation."

I may add that the interesting account of the great storm and the destruction of the church steeple was written by Thomas Haines, parish clerk and schoolmaster, who died in 1646. He has left an excellent transcript of the registers from their earliest date (1560) down to 1646, the year of his death, and the books are in good order. The Rev. Ralph Greene was vicar at the time of the destruction of the steeple, and, as stated in a quaint inscription on a freestone slab in the floor near the chancel steps, he held the incumbency for forty-nine years. He died on the 3rd September, 1639, aged 87. About twenty-five years ago the chancel was restored, and the floor relaid with tiles. The workmen found the old stone some depth below the surface, and under it, there is no doubt, Mr. Greene was buried. Having been thus brought to the light, it was placed in its present position. It was visible when Sir Robert Atkyns wrote his History; see 2nd edition, p. 311. Bigland has not mentioned it under the head of Olveston, vol. ii., pp. 299-302; and we may presume that in his time it was concealed from view. CLERICUS.

1531.-THE ANNUAL TRANSCRIPTS OF PARISH REGISTERS.-In the Bristol Times and Mirror, Nov. 7th, 1887, a correspondent has written as follows:-"I call attention to a serious matter, viz., the growing neglect of the clergy to send to the diocesan registrars the annual transcripts of the parish registers, as required by the Act of 1812. Lately, having been told that four marriages were in the registers of a certain parish, I looked at the transcripts in the registry. I found one-of the year 1862. But after that year

• See vol. iii., p. 109, for the parliamentary return respecting them.

they had ceased to be sent. The archdeacons and rural deans do not, so far as I know, stir up the clergy to attend to this matter."

The writer of the foregoing note styles himself "A Rector," and seems to have had good reason for writing as he has done. I know the answer which some persons will be ready to give. I wish, however, through your pages, briefly to impress the importance of the matter upon the clergy in general, and of Gloucestershire in particular. J. G.

1536.-DYER FAMILY, OF WOTTON-UNDER-EDGE.-I should be glad if any genealogist could inform me as to the maiden name of Mary, wife of William Dyer (d. 13 August, 1740), who died 25 November, 1762, aged 68 years, both of whom were buried at Wotton; and the same of Mary (d. 6 April, 1695), wife of John Dyer, of Burrington, Somerset, father of the abovenamed William, who died 24 April, 1697, and was buried at Burrington. I should also be glad to know who was the father of John Dyer. Bedford.

F. A. BLAYDES.

1537.-SIR NEVILL POOLE, KNT., M.P. FOR CIRENCESTER, 1626. -He was M.P. for Malmesbury in 1614; for Cricklade in 1623-4; and again for Malmesbury in both parliaments of 1640, being one of the Long Parliament members excluded in "Pride's Purge," Dec. 1648. He was knighted at Newmarket, Jan. 1612-13, and was living in 1659. In the parliamentary return for 1626 he is described as "of Oxsey, Co. Wilts." I shall be glad to have some genealogical particulars respecting him. Was he akin to the Pooles of Pauntley, Gloucestershire, two of whom, Sir Giles Poole and his son, Sir Henry, were members for the county temp. Elizabeth? Leigh, Lancashire. W. D. PINK.

1538.-SIR JOHN SEYMOUR, KNT., M.P. FOR GLOUCESTERSHIRE, 1646. He was elected, 16 November, 1646, in the place of John Dutton, Esq., disabled as a royalist, and was one of the members excluded in "Pride's Purge," Dec. 1648. He was, I think, the "Sir John Seymore" of Somerset, knighted by James I. at Greenwich, 2 April, 1605. Can any reader oblige me with particulars of him? His name does not appear among the excluded members of the Long Parliament surviving in 1659-60, so that he was probably dead before that date. W. D. PINK.

1539. THOMAS HODGES, ESQ., OF SHIPTON MOYNE. He married first, Dulcibella, daughter of John Symes, of Poundsford, Somerset, and secondly, Mary, daughter of Sir William Cooke, of Highnam, near Gloucester, leaving issue by both marriages. According to the Visitation of Gloucestershire, 1682-3, he and his eldest son, Thomas, died about the same time, i.e., about 1670. I suspect this to be an error, and that the date applies to the son's

death only. Thomas Hodges, sen., was elected M.P. for Cricklade, Wiltshire, in both parliaments of 1640, and was one of the members excluded by Colonel Pride in December, 1648. From the circumstance that he is not named in any list of such excluded members living in 1659-60, I infer that he had died. Is the precise date of his decease on record? He heads the pedigree in the abovenamed Visitation. What was his parentage? and are any of his descendants extant?

W. D. PINK.

See two notes, headed "The Hodges Family, of Shipton Moyne," in vol. i., pp. 360-63, 455-57; also vol. ii., p. 27.

EDITOR.

1540.-REV. HENRY RICHARDS' LETTER ON HORFIELD MANOR.I shall feel much obliged to anyone who will kindly lend me, or tell me where I may find, a copy of a Letter from the Rev. Henry Richards to Bishop Monk on Horfield Manor, which was published many years ago. F. BINGHAM.

Horfield Rectory, Bristol.

1541.-INSCRIPTIONS ON EARLY ENGLISH POTTERY.-Believing that not a few collectors in your part of the kingdom and elsewhere would appreciate a list of the names, initials, or inscriptions occurring on pieces of English pottery of the earlier fabriques, I am collecting particulars with a view to publication. I have already notices of such specimens as are to be found in the public and larger private collections; but I am desirous of including likewise as many as may be, of those in private hands; and my objection asking you kindly to insert this letter is, to encourage possessors to communicate with me. The principal varieties of potteries which I propose to insert in my list are the following:-Slip ware, including Toft; Marble ware; Lambeth, Bristol, and Liverpool delft; Salt glazed ware; Jackfield, Nottingham, Fulham, and Lambeth stone ware.

Porcelain, and the later descriptions of pottery, such as Leeds and Wedgewood, are outside the scope of my inquiries.

Replies, stating size of specimens, and giving full particularsof he inscriptions or dates, will be gratefully received.

Childwall, Richmond-on-Thames. J. ELIOT HODGKIN, F.S.A. 1542.-RUTTER FAMILY, OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE.-If you can find room for the following extract from Notes and Queries I shall feel obliged, as I am anxious to obtain particulars of the Rutters of Bisley, Bourton-on-the-Hill, Brimscombe, Cirencester, Dorsington, Quinton, Slimbridge, Stow-on-the-Wold, Weston-sub-Edge, and other districts in the county:

"RUTTER OF KINGSLEY, CHESHIRE.-Some members of various branches of this family are collecting materials for a history of it, and will be grateful for any information sent to G. Rutter Fletcher, Solicitor, 14, Finsbury Square, London, E.C."

VOL. IV.

G. RUTTER FLETCHER.

C

Particulars of sundry members of the Rudder, or Rutter, family have been given in vol. i., p. 184; ii., 80. EDITOR.

1543.-POOLE FAMILY, OF SAPERTON.-A correspondent asks in Notes and Queries (7th S. iv. 349):- Where can I find a pedigree, or any information relating to the families of Poole, of Saperton, Gloucestershire, and of Okesy, Wilts? Both descended

from Richard Poole, of the old Cheshire family.

Another correspondent has replied, p. 452 of same volume :In the Visitation of Gloucestershire, 1623 (Harleian Society, vol. xxi.), there is a pedigree of Poole of Saperton. One marriage with a Poole of "Okes," co. Wilts, is mentioned.

A further reply is as follows, p. 477 -Your correspondent can find the pedigrees he seeks in the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum :-Poole, of Sapperton, fr. co. Chesh. MSS. 1041, ff. 41, 64b; 1191, fo. 37b; 1543, ff. 33, 74b. Marriages, 1543, ff. 50, 54b. Poole, co. Wilts. MSS. 1181, fo. 19b; 1443, fo. 32b; 5184, p. 13.

1544.-"PLEAS OF THE CROWN FOR THE COUNTY OF GLOUCESTER,” A.D. 1221.-This volume, as we remarked two years ago in our "Notices of Recent Publications," No. 4, though not calculated to be much in favour with the popular reader, will be found, upon examination, to possess a large amount of local and general interest. From Mr. Maitland's introduction we learn that what he has transcribed is so much of the record of the Gloucestershire eyre (or circuit) of the justices itinerant, who were appointed by the king's court (or aula regis), as relates to pleas of the crown in the year 1221, or, as one would now say, to proceedings in the criminal as distinguished from the civil courts. "It is," as Mr. Maitland has defined it, "a picture, or rather, since little imaginative art went to its making, a photograph of English life as it was early in the thirteenth century, and a photograph taken from a point of view at which chroniclers too seldom place themselves." What the judicial system, if such it could be called, was in these early times, is very obscure. There were many courts, and their functions do not appear to have been clearly defined. There was the manor court, presided over by the lord of the manor his deputy; the hundred court, by the headborough; the county court, by the sheriffs: there were commissions of oyer and terminer and gaol delivery to the judges and other eminent persons; and there was the eyre, or justices specially appointed to visit the several counties, and to decide in all cases, civil or criminal, that might be brought before them. Seven judges were sent out on the present eyre, but only six of them sat at Gloucester, the seventh being Ralph Musard, who was then sheriff of the county, and who, in accord

Pleas of the Crown for the County of Gloucester before the Abbot of Reading and his fellows Justices Itinerant, in the fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Third, and the year of grace 1221. Edited by F. W. Maitland. London: Macmillan and Co. 1884.

ance with the rule solemnly sanctioned by the great charter of King John, was forbidden to sit as a judge within his own shire. The first judge named in the commission was Abbot Simon, of Reading.

When we had written the foregoing paragraph in the "Notices," we expressed a hope of referring more fully to the volume at another time, and of making it the subject of a Note; and now, with the help of a writer in the Gloucestershire Chronicle (who, we trust, will excuse the free use here made of his labours), we shall proceed to fulfil what we proposed to do.

"This body of seven judges," Mr. Maitland remarks, p. xi., was what we should call a very strong commission. The first judge named in the commission was Simon, abbot of Reading. He must have been an able, intrepid man, otherwise Innocent the Third would not have chosen him to publish the sentence of excommunication against the champions of the charter. The second name is that of Randolf, abbot of Evesham. It is not known that either of these prelates was by profession a lawyer, or was ever employed as a royal judge save on this one occasion. But the book to which we most naturally look for an account of Abbot Randolf [Chronicle of Evesham, Rolls Series] reminds us that at this time a monastic life was by no means incompatible with a zealous study and practice of the law. The abbey of Evesham had several suits to prosecute and defend before the judges at Gloucester, and likely enough was represented by its prior, Thomas Marlborough, who was to succeed Randolf in the abbotcy. The lively chronicle that he has left us shows him to have been heart and soul a lawyer. He had presided over the law school at Oxford; he gave his monastery a library of law books; for years he fought the bishop of Worcester from court to court; he himself pleaded the cause of Evesham before the holy see; and . . . he has told us how his too fluent adversary bored the pope with tedious argument, and how the wearied Innocent at last broke out into his famous remark about the influence of English beer." The third judge was the famous Martin Pateshull, so strong, so sedulous," says a brother judge, "that he wears out all his fellows; nor is this surprising, for every day he begins work at sunrise, and does not stop until nightfall." With these were two other regular judges of the king's court, Robert Lexington and Ralph Hareng; and also John of Monmouth, a powerful baron in the west, "a good servant of King John, an executor of his will."

66

It is interesting to realise, as far as we have the means of doing so, what was the kind of business at this ancient assize. The writs were issued on the 16th May, 1221, and the judges were directed to begin their eyre, or eircuit, at Worcester on the 7th June. After disposing of the business at Worcester, they proceeded to Gloucester, and apparently began their session in that city on the 21st June. There had not been an eyre for about seven years, so there was